As Cold As Ice

by Mandy Rosko

  She had to wonder what they did if several hours or more passed by with no excitement. Did they whip out their phones and play Angry Birds when no one watched? She didn’t see any black camera balls anywhere.

  Thankfully, Soren didn’t take her down the hall where her cell had been. Instead, they turned a corner and went in an entirely different direction.

  Chapter Seven

  The hallways seemed to twist and wind, which was disorienting under the florescent lights. Jessica wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but the halls also seemed to narrow and curve down at a slant somewhat the farther they went.

  Almost like they were trudging deep into the earth.

  She'd never been so deep into the building before. "Where exactly are we going? It feels like you're about to take me to some secret torture chamber."

  A small smile crawled up the corners of Soren's mouth, almost as if he was fighting it, but couldn't help himself. "No, that's not what this is. There's an arena down here. Sometimes, some of the subjects you catch, the more violent or powerful ones, are brought down here."

  Jessica thought about that. She'd known that some of the paranormals she'd brought in needed to be tested, and that could involve any number of things. It wasn't just taking blood samples and getting the people to run on a treadmill for any amount of time.

  Still, she hadn't known people were brought down there. It all seemed kind of...what was the word she wanted? Not Hunger Games-ish. No, that would probably involve a bigger arena. And more children.

  Though, maybe the description was closer than she thought.

  "You don't make the people you bring down here fight to the death, do you?"

  The smile immediately left Soren's lips. "No, I don't," he said, and they finally came up to a set of strong-looking double doors.

  There were tiny square windows in the steel, though Jessica didn't know what the point was since the glass was so thick she couldn't see into the room.

  Soren waved his card in front of the scanner in the wall, a green light flashed, there was a hiss, and he opened the door.

  He spoke before they could enter.

  "Sometimes, though, Mr. Layton does make them do it."

  Jessica felt a shiver crawl up her spine. It felt like a dozen oversized spiders were on her skin. It was so horrifying, so believable yet unbelievable that she couldn't even take in what she was seeing.

  It wasn't an arena in the classic sense of the word, though it was a large, circular room with a domed top. The ceiling had to reach a hundred feet high at the very top, right where it rounded off.

  There were also seats where spectators could watch any show that was put on for them, though they weren't high up compared to the floor where the show was meant to take place. Not in the Gladiator sense, anyway.

  She looked at Soren. "I guess he likes to watch?"

  Soren didn't look at her. Whether because he wouldn't, or just couldn't, Jessica couldn't say.

  "Sometimes," he answered finally, and she noticed he was clenching his fists. "There's a couple of buttons over there, by the panel. The floor actually lowers so the seats will be higher, and a glass barrier slides down from the ceiling, keeping the fighting paranormals and any powers they might be using separate from Mr. Layton and any of his rich friends he invited over to see the show."

  That sickened her so much her stomach actually churned inside of her body. It revolted, and it threw up a little. She gagged on it and barely held it back as she looked at the leather seats.

  They were plush, thick and wide enough to look like the type of thing a rich guy would sit on when he ordered first class or something. There were even cup holders in them. And though she couldn't see it, something told her there was an option to fold out a tiny slap of glass or polished wood that would snap into place over the lap of whoever was sitting down, allowing them to casually work on their laptops, tablets, or just review some paperwork, not a care in the world about the people who were fighting to the death in front of them for their amusement.

  “So, we’re just buried under the entire building?”

  “Pretty much.”

  "Did you bring me down here to fight someone?" Jessica asked. She was enraged by the idea, but her voice left her mouth sounding surprisingly calm, even for her.

  Soren shook his head. "No. I had a talk with Mr. Layton about that. It was one of the things I brought up when I stayed behind and Charles took you to lunch."

  He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and there wasn't a hint of any jealousy from what he'd walked in on.

  "You asked him to not have me kill anyone?"

  "You're so sure you would win?" Soren asked.

  "Yes," Jessica said matter-of-factly. She didn't have to think about it.

  Some paranormals were a thousand times more dangerous than others. It all depended on the power, the ability, and how they were used.

  For example, in this setting, if she were to go against a man or a woman who could breathe underwater, well then, even if she was put into a tank of water with them, her ice powers trumped that any day. Out of the water, the merpeople were as helpless as ants under some mean kid's magnifying glass.

  Even for Cindy, who was a powerful pyro, her fire would be no match for Jessica's ice.

  If there was someone stronger than she was, all she had to do was freeze their feet and stop them from coming at her. If they were strong enough that they broke free, then she froze their eyes, or their bodies.

  Stop an opponent from moving, breathing, or seeing. That was the key to any self defense class.

  Of course, with Jessica's power, all three of those things could greatly hurt or kill the attacker. Which was what happened when those paranormals were thrown into the cell with her.

  The only thing she couldn't overpower was the shackles on her wrists, which led her to believe that one of her few weaknesses was the paranormals who were so good at controlling the life force around them that it bordered on magic.

  Soren eyed her, like he was trying to decide whether or not she was being honest or just putting on a show for the sake of looking tough.

  It was a little bit of both, but she wished the sympathy in his blue eyes would go away.

  She looked away from him. "Stop that."

  "Stop what?"

  "Looking at me like that. You don't have to feel sorry for me, and you don't have to care about what happens to me, either. That's dangerous for you."

  "Of course I care," Soren said.

  Jessica eyed him sharply, her eyes wide.

  Soren shook his head. "We're not being listened in on down here. We're too deep underground for anything to be bugged wirelessly, and Mr. Layton has a rule about audio or video recordings. He never wants anything that happens down here to get out to the public. Even his guests are scanned before they come in. If they want to read or do work, then they have to bring physical files or papers. No phones, no tablets, no nothing."

  "Oh, well, that's really good to hear," Jessica said, looking around at the equipment in the arena. There were training dummies, heavy medicine balls, and weights. It was like the paranormals he expected to fight were also required to train for said fights.

  Maybe they were.

  "So, I can say anything I want down here, and no one will know?"

  Soren nodded. "Pretty much."

  Which meant she could look around and try to find a way out. “Every movie I ever watched as a kid taught me that the evil rich guy always has a back door. Where’s Mark’s?”

  Soren sighed then pointed to the far wall behind Jessica. “See that area of concrete over there?”

  Jessica turned, pretty sure she caught sight of what Soren wanted her to see when she noticed that one large, squared-off area was just a touch lighter than everything else. She walked over to it. There was black and white tile surrounding the giant square, and more tile surrounding other squares of concrete, which had been enough to fool Jessica into thinking it was all for design.
/>   “This is a door?”

  Soren nodded.

  Jessica wanted to laugh. “This is great then! We can get out of here right now.”

  “No, we can’t,” Soren said simply, which was enough to deflate the happy mood Jessica had put herself into.

  “Okay. Why?”

  Soren walked over to her; he was standing so close, she could feel his body heat. He leaned in, and Jessica swallowed hard.

  He didn’t kiss her. Why was he not kissing her?

  A small tapping noise behind her made her turn her head down.

  Soren was tapping on one of the small, black tiles with his finger. When Jessica frowned and squinted a little at it, she realized it wasn’t tile, not like the other black squares surrounding the even bigger concrete one. It was black glass.

  Jessica sighed. “Let me guess, fingerprint and retina scanning?”

  “And when there’s a lockdown in the building, the emergency power will also ask for a tiny blood sample. There’s no hacking this thing. We’re not getting out of here unless Markus is physically in the room with us. Or unless someone bombs the other side, but I don’t even know where this thing leads, and I've been trying to find out for a while. Supposedly, it goes right under the entire city and then some.”

  Jessica sucked in a long breath then let it out in a long, hard yell that was so intense the inside of her throat vibrated. "This is such fucking bullshit!"

  Her voice echoed around the room, and just for good measure, she let out an enraged roaring scream. To her own ears, it sounded like a battle cry, something a person shouted before killing another man. It lasted a good twenty seconds, and in screaming time, that was a lot. It was something that rocked her throat and mouth harder than the yell she'd let out previous, probably heard from the first floor, despite how deep underground they were. When she finished, her throat ached. It burned, actually.

  She was breathless when she finally stopped. Her chest fell up and down in hard spurts, and she glared at Soren, her fists clenched.

  He watched her calmly, as if that had been nothing he hadn't been expecting. She was shocked. “Feel better?"

  "No!" she snapped, though it wasn't true. She did feel better. Not entirely, but it had felt good to get some of the anger and frustration out of her, to scream for the weeks she'd spent in that cell, for the people she'd had to kill just so Charles, some other scientists, and maybe even Soren could take notes on their goddamned clipboards.

  "Could I attack you down here?" Jessica asked, and she really wanted to do it. She braced her legs for the spring. "You said no one was watching us. What would happen if I were to jump at you?"

  "Then you would attack me," Soren said with a shrug. "I have no training, not the kind you have with fighting and with apprehending paranormals. You could probably get me down, despite my best efforts, and you could probably do some real damage to me and steal the key to your shackles, though you wouldn't escape the building. There's too many guards, even with your powers."

  "Horse shit.”

  Soren lifted a brow at her.

  Jessica rolled her eyes, her anger not leaving her. “Not the escaping part, but the part about doing any damage to you. You’re a paranormal. I don’t know what you are, but I know you’re strong as fuck.”

  Soren still didn’t say anything to her, and Jessica realized her mistake.

  Which just made her want to hit him even more. So she threw a punch at his cheek. He didn’t move, didn’t lift his hands and cower, or make an attempt to duck out of the way like any other normal person would when they knew they were about to be struck in the face by flying knuckles.

  He just let her hit him. His head turned under the force of the impact, but when he looked at her, blue eyes still calm and unreadable, Jessica realized she’d made another mistake.

  He seemed to stare right through her. A red mark, a bruise, slowly bloomed on his cheek. It would worsen as time went on.

  She thought so anyway, especially when the mark turned a bright purple and blue, swelling in front of her eyes. Then, just as quickly, it paled, transforming into yellow and even a little green before fading away entirely, leaving only clear, clean skin.

  The whole process took less than fifteen seconds to complete. When it was done, Soren reached out and grabbed her by the face. Jessica held perfectly still, waiting to take the retribution that was probably owed.

  She hadn’t expected Soren’s revenge to be his mouth descending upon hers.

  Chapter Eight

  The kiss was rough, and at first, it could barely even be called a kiss. It was more like their mouths were just mashing together harshly. Since it was somewhat hard to keep any kiss close-mouthed, their teeth also came into contact in a violent way.

  The way their pearly whites knocked together made pain flair all the way up into her head, not to mention the rest of her mouth.

  She moaned from the pain and grabbed onto Soren's wrists, and he let out a similar agonized sound and gripped her cheeks even tighter.

  Neither of them tried to pull away.

  Not yet. Not just yet.

  Soren was the one to abruptly push himself back, and his eyes were that same odd golden color, that same glowing diamond shape she'd seen the first time she realized there wasn't something entirely human about him.

  "Are you a shifter?" she asked.

  Soren licked his lips. "Something like that."

  Okay, that wasn't what she'd been expecting to hear, but it wasn't like she thought she was going to get any honesty out of him anyway.

  "Are you a werewolf?"

  That might’ve explained why she was so eager to spread her legs and grind against his thigh. All he had to do was step a little closer and she'd do it. No second thoughts, no regrets.

  Animal shifters did have the whole ‘animal kingdom wildness’ about them. People around them tended to want sex from them.

  A lot of good, hard, wild sex.

  Soren shook his head. "No. Nothing like that."

  Jessica didn't know if she was disappointed at that—because the excuse for guilt-free sex was gone—or relieved.

  "You really didn't know what I was?" Soren asked.

  Jessica bit her lips together and her eyes pulled down to look at Soren's pink lips, lips that were slightly glazed from their kiss, regardless of how rough it had been.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry."

  Soren's thumb traced over her cheek. "Well, yes, you did. That was something of the point to get me to cooperate with you, but that's fine. It doesn't matter."

  "It doesn't?"

  Soren shook his head. "No, and neither does Charles. I know you're only doing what you feel you have to do to get out of here. You wouldn't be the first attractive paranormal female to try and take advantage of that."

  Hearing that, regardless of how true it was, pissed Jessica off to no end. "I'm not going to be sleeping with him. Ever," she stated vehemently.

  Soren looked at her like he didn't quite believe her. "Then why are you letting me touch you like this?"

  Her eyes widened, but she recovered from her shock quickly. "This is a test?"

  "No, not really. I guess I just wondered if you would let me do it, and I had to."

  Jessica's face heated. Yeah, that made sense, she supposed. "Because you like my face and body."

  The picture of her on his computer was proof enough of that.

  The romantic thing to do would have been to tell her no, that wasn't the only thing he liked about her. That he liked her personality, liked how she could be tough but kind whenever it was necessary, that she only brought in paranormals who actually were a danger to society.

  That would have been the romantic thing to say, fitting for a scene in a romance novel.

  Not there. Not in this place where underhanded business deals took place, and bored billionaires watched paranormals use their powers to kill each other, because they couldn't be bothered to watch the latest X-Men movie instead.


  Soren just nodded, the gold in his eyes darkening. "Yes, I do like your face and body."

  Jessica didn't pull away from him. His was the first comforting touch she'd had in so long. She didn't care how real it was, if it was fake, whatever. The point was that she believed in it enough in that moment to allow herself to be consoled by it.

  She wanted more of it. It didn't matter if it was the wrong place and the wrong time, and she didn't care what it made her to want it. All she could think about was that it might be months more before she could ever feel this good again, this safe, and this normal. Soren was her jailor, but he did that for her.

  Jessica slid her hands away from his wrists, up his arms and around the back of his neck, touching the soft, auburn hairs growing there.

  He tensed, as if expecting her to do something, like attack him. But Jessica didn't move. She waited for him to relax, to realize she wasn't about to sink her nails into his skin, or launch herself at him in a flurry and just battle it out.

  She stood there, looking up at him. He was tall, at least five inches taller than she was. She liked that, liked men who weren't just taller than her, but noticeably so. It made her feel dainty and feminine, which was something she didn't often get to feel.

  "Do you want to have sex with me?" she asked.

  That was beyond not romantic, but it was an honest enough question. She wanted to know if he did.

  Soren's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He was good-looking, really good-looking, though he hid that away when he kept his head constantly down, refused to socialize, and sometimes didn't leave his office for days on end.

  The shy routine didn't seem like an act, and it appeared to take him a lot of genuine effort to nod. "Yes. Do you want me to?"

  "To what?" Jessica asked, playing with him a little, wanting him to answer her. "Be specific, please."

  A touch of color bloomed on his cheeks. He looked adorably embarrassed and uncomfortable. “Do you want me to…to fuck you?"